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On Tuesday, 4 July, the Colombian Constitution turns 15 years old, replacing the old Constitution of 1886, drafted by two conservative, ultra-Catholic politicians. On the contrary, the Constitution of 1991 was written by 74 constituents, representing all political parties, all ethnicities and even recently demobilized illegal armed groups. The new Magna Carta represented a huge advance on protection of fundamental rights, the expansion of public freedoms, the acknowledge and respect for minorities and the formal separation between State and (Catholic) Church.

The Constitutional Court has managed to preserve the spirit of the document, which has been more accessible to Colombian people through the acción de tutela, a mecanism of complaint (inspired in others as the Austrian Beschwerde) which allows common people to make their rights immediately effective. More than 1.3 million acciones de tutela have been filed, although some people abuse of this mecanism to change judicial decisions of other tribunals. The Court has also taken care of the rights of the minorities and some of their magistrates made controversial decisions, like the 1994 sentence which legalized the "personal dose of drug", whose final judge was Carlos Gaviria Díaz, later senator and presidential candidate, based on the right to "free personality development". Recently, it has legalized partially abortion, decision which caused a overreaction from the Catholic church, which excommunicated the magistrates who voted in favor and all the mothers (even the teenagers raped by their relatives, for example) who decide to abort. Of course, cardinals wouldn’t excommunicate their own members who molestate children, although this, for example, may be a progress.

The Court also fixed the so-called Justice and Peace Law, that tries to give a legal frame to the troubled process of demobilization of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), a paramilitary group. The law had several flaws on the protections on the rights of the victims, and (still) gives the demobilized great benefits if they confess their horrible crimes, including dramatically reduced sentences. Because of that, it was severely criticized by international media. Human Rights Watch received quite well the decision, but Ernesto Báez, the AUC spokesman, questioned it so tremendously that a magistrate dared to say that after Báez statements, the decisions may have be changed.

Challenges as the described above have been faced by the Constitution on recent years. The Presidents and the conservatives don’t like it. The former because it limited their power (although that changed last year, when the Court, pressured by Uribe’s popularity, allowed presidential re-election, reducing the independence of the State; so now we’re living 4 more years of the Uribist pseudomonarchy) and the latter because of the Court’s non-formalist approach, and its protection of the weaker’s rights. A former minister, Fernando Londoño, involved in a bank scandal, simply hates it. And so do others who "defend and prefer the rights of the minority which has traditionally seized the economical, political and social power of this unlucky country, where the powerful don’t see as  an important matter to share it with the others". 

Colombians should protect, defend and love their progresist and modern Constitution. It’s not a "constitution for angels", as its critics used to say, but it still needs to be implemented more successfully. And that’s on, unfortunately, the people who less seem to care about it. The progress and the peace of our country shall be in our hands, not theirs.

[Updated on 2006.07.04 11:10 COT]